The US President Donald Trump criticized The New York Times calling the outlet “a true enemy of the people” right after the publication of an article detailing his alleged “two-year war on the investigations encircling him.”
The US President regularly targets the “Fake News media” in general with his tweets, yet not always identifies the particular news outlet. However, the New York Times was strongly criticized by the president, who had called the newspaper’s recent reporting “false” and dubbed the outlet “a true enemy of the people.”
The New York Times reporting is false. They are a true ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 20, 2019
The tweet came after a Times article published on Tuesday claiming that Trump had been in a “two-year war” with the investigations surrounding him.
In an earlier tweet Trump complained that journalists “don’t even call asking for verification” about stories they are planning to publish about his administration.
The Press has never been more dishonest than it is today. Stories are written that have absolutely no basis in fact. The writers don’t even call asking for verification. They are totally out of control. Sadly, I kept many of them in business. In six years, they all go BUST!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 20, 2019
New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman, who co-authored the Tuesday article, dismissed the claim during an interview with CNN’s “New Day,” however, noting how she’d sent several emails to the White House about the planned story “that went unanswered until yesterday.”
“That’s not true, that’s a lie,” Haberman said. “I don’t know if he knows it’s a lie or whether he is telling himself this is true, whether his staff doesn’t tell him we are reaching out. I find it hard to believe that his staff didn’t reach him that this kind of a report was coming.”
New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger issued a statement hours later condemning the president's use of the phrase "enemy of the people" as "dangerous" and inaccurate, raising fears that such comments might encourage “violence against journalists at home and abroad.”
Trump has previously slammed the mainstream media over multiple instances of misreporting or misinterpretation of his words and actions. For example, Trump said earlier he was wrongfully accused of being late for a meeting with the British Queen during his state visit to the United Kingdom in July.
In 2017 the US President had even listed his own top-11 list of “most dishonest and corrupt” media outlets, bringing attention to reports such as the prediction of The New York Times’ Paul Krugman that the US economy would never recover; ABC News, whose false report on Trump and Russia sent markets in a downward spiral; and TIME, which claimed that Trump removed a Martin Luther King, Jr. bust from the Oval Office.
